Innovation Starts at Home - Don’t Be Afraid of Change

 http://bit.ly/GHZw7I

You may have read IBM CEO Samuel J. Palmisano's comment on how to survive through in this economy: "The way you will thrive in this environment is by innovating -- innovating in technologies, innovating in strategies, innovating in business models." 

Today, innovation is about much more than new products. It is about redefining business processes and building entirely new markets that meet customer's new and changing needs. 

Remember how the BusinessWeek joined with The Boston Consulting Group to produce an annual ranking of the 25 most innovative companies? 

Very impressively, Toyota Motors has leaped 10 spots this year to No. 4. What did they do that gave them this major boost of innovation? Last year, Toyota launched its Value Innovation strategy. Rather than work with suppliers just to cut costs of individual parts, it is delving further back in the design process to find save costs that span across the entire vehicle's systems. 

Therefore it’s right to say that there is always a better solution for any company to gain more success. Take the example of “Pret a Manger”: it is a chain of coffee shops that cares about the environment and have made innovative statements on their napkins to attract attention of both staff and customers.

Hence, innovation can be defined as remixing old ideas using a three steps process: copy, transform and combine. 

By following the same methods and strategies that you have used in the past to achieve your current success may increase your risks to:

• Loose interest from current and new markets
  
• See a reductions in efficiency and productivity relative to your competitors
  
• Be forced to lower profit margins
  
• Loose valuable staff
  
• Be unable to stop the business' decline
  

 

Innovation will help your organisation:

• Improve productivity
  
• Decrease costs
  
• Be more competitive
  
• Increase profit margins
  
• Grow the perceived value of your product
  
• Form strategic partnerships and relationships
  

 

We strongly believe that innovation can take you to further heights.

Noam Kostucki, author and award winning speaker, shares with you a practical example of innovation. How does he bring further innovation to Pret a Manger? He discusses three concepts and merges them in to one whole new business idea.